Predator (1987) is one of those action/sci-fi films of the 80s which feel like almost perfect movies: no lulls, no tedious side-plots, but enough focused writing to pit plausible characters against hitherto implausible adversaries. It’s no surprise then that the original film has presented tantalisingly rich pickings for subsequent films, whether reboots or add-ons (and it’s no surprise either that another almost perfect action sci-fi movie, Aliens (1986), provided the means for one of those add-ons, specifically one of those ‘vs’ films which were briefly rather popular). Now, we have a prequel: without namechecking Predator, Prey (2022) is nonetheless a Predator movie, this time going back to the 18th Century to look at a Predator’s early expedition to Earth (and it’s hard not to see them as…kind of like enclosure hunters, to be honest, which is a shame, because who wants to associate anyone or anything with those fat cowards?)
Set on the American/Canadian border, the Predator encounters the Comanche tribe (several hundred miles north of where they were actually based at the time) but in his frenetic run of skull-sourcing, he doesn’t bank on the diligence and fighting skill of a young Comanche woman called Naru (Amber Midthunder). Never before has ‘final girl’ been foreshadowed quite so hard – but, all in all, despite a gathering pile of minor misgivings, the film works pretty well as a fairly straightforward, but reasonably paced film with lots of well-handled action sequences.
Naru isn’t like the other women in her tribe; to be fair, it’s not beyond belief that a spirited young woman could wish to rail against women’s work, which is presented here as tedious – vital, but tedious nonetheless – with the same morning routine, as all the women move out to gather petals and somesuch (one woman is shown twice to have a baby on her back – I mean, god). It’s all represented as something Naru can’t handle any more. She prefers to hang out with her brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers) and his friends, hunting out on the ridge line. They hone their skills by hunting…well, most wildlife, to be honest, which didn’t quite chime with this reviewer’s notions of Native Americans as only taking from the land what they really need. That’s not for here. Eagle? Fuck you, eagle! Mountain lion – let’s have you. Rabbit! Harmless possum! They just shoot them all, but let’s be charitable and assume they do in fact then prep them and eat them, rather than just indiscriminately filling all of the local fauna with arrows.
When she’s not deflecting her brother’s friends’ sexist quips, Naru becomes aware of something else out there, and a sizeable threat too, to judge by the tracks she finds: she begins to associate it with the strange flash of fire she saw in the sky, which she had taken as a spiritual sign rather than evidence that they are about to be rather comprehensively turned over. The Predator here, whilst not quite contemporary in a tri-corner helmet, is clad in different gear to the fella who appeared on the planet in the 1980s, by which time there were probably package deals. Nonetheless, he’s as wildlife-averse as the Comanche and once he’s satisfied that it’s a case of Predator hunting predator, he begins tearing the local predators asunder in ways I found genuinely quite upsetting, despite having a full awareness that this is a case of CGI vs CGI. It matters not. Who wouldn’t be Team Grizzly? The film could have ended with something more like that scene in The Revenant (2015), and it would have been just fine. Groundbreaking.
Obviously that doesn’t happen: the Predator turns his attention to the humans, and despite a few early missteps when she’s actually faced with formidable foes out in the wilds (including some obligatory Dreadful Whites, a band of French-speaking furriers), Naru learns quickly. The skills she has been practicing as a kind of surreptitious two-finger salute to prescriptive gender roles come in handy; she correctly assesses how this creature is hunting and spots an opportunity to prove her worth to her tribe by eliminating this clear existential threat. Now, to do so, and also in the general establishment of her prowess as a physically strong fighter, the film plays very fast and loose with the physical capabilities of a girl who looks to be…maybe twenty, and about 125lbs. Sure, this isn’t a work of exacting realism – and yes, there’s a massive alien stalking the plains – and this is certainly not the first film to pit relatively tiny females against hulking great males and have them win; it’s gotten to the point now that real life almost expects this to really be true: the fantasy (see also the entire ‘final girl’ idea) which started as a mishmash of wish fulfilment and catharsis now stands as a kind of bizarre truism.
But okay: if we surrender to the notion that Naru can not only kick the cack out of her brother’s quip-ready mate, but also pit herself against a creature who has just literally ripped his way through an entire camp of grizzled, armed men – even if this necessitates a spot of threat disparity along the way – then the resulting battle is very entertaining. The creature effects are handled well and the scale of the location is used to great effect, with a well-developed sense that this natural world was a tough enough environment anyway; things have escalated, sure, but this huge challenge to the ingenuity of the Comanche people works in many respects because you believe that they have already adapted to a tough, often vulnerable life. Guns and ammo – even rudimentary ones – are no match for a wily understanding of the world on the edge of camp. It would have been good to get just a little more characterisation of the Predator – which, again, demands comparison with the near-perfect 1987 film – but all in all, Prey is a decent spectacle, gritty and grim enough, and an ambitious take on the mythos. (Making the film so difficult to actually get hold of is a question for the ages, and beyond our remit here, but this would have been great at the cinema.)
Prey (2022) is available on streaming services Hulu and Disney Plus.